mmWall: A Transflective Metamaterial Surface for mmWave Networks

TL;DR

mmWall is an innovative metamaterial surface that can steer millimeter wave signals nearly 360 degrees, significantly improving indoor and outdoor mmWave network reliability by reducing outages and increasing signal quality.

Contribution

This paper introduces mmWall, the first electronically steerable metamaterial surface for mmWave networks, capable of refracting and reflecting signals to enhance coverage and reliability.

Findings

Indoor outage-free locations at 91% with 128-QAM data rates

Outdoor link failure probability reduced by up to 40%

SNR improved by up to 30 dB in various scenarios

Abstract

Mobile operators are poised to leverage millimeter wave technology as 5G evolves, but despite efforts to bolster their reliability indoors and outdoors, mmWave links remain vulnerable to blockage by walls, people, and obstacles. Further, there is significant interest in bringing outdoor mmWave coverage indoors, which for similar reasons remains challenging today. This paper presents the design, hardware implementation, and experimental evaluation of mmWall, the first electronically almost-360 degree steerable metamaterial surface that operates above 24 GHz and both refracts or reflects incoming mmWave transmissions. Our metamaterial design consists of arrays of varactor-split ring resonator unit cells, miniaturized for mmWave. Custom control circuitry drives each resonator, overcoming coupling challenges that arise at scale. Leveraging beam steering algorithms, we integrate mmWall into the link layer discovery protocols of common mmWave networks. We have fabricated a 10 cm by 20 cm mmWall prototype consisting of a 28 by 76 unit cell array, and evaluate in indoor, outdoor-to-indoor, and multi-beam scenarios. Indoors, mmWall guarantees 91% of locations outage-free under 128-QAM mmWave data rates and boosts SNR by up to 15 dB. Outdoors, mmWall reduces the probability of complete link failure by a ratio of up to 40% under 0-80% path blockage and boosts SNR by up to 30 dB.